Who is the greatest living American citizen?

I was watching a movie the other day, when a question was asked to a group of students. Who is the greatest living American?

When I heard that, I thought to myself, “What a great question.” Honestly, who could it be?

So like most Americans, I turned to Google to see what it said. The answer: Comedy Central’s Seven Colbert is the greatest living American.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Colbert and his show “The Colbert Report,” but he is not the greatest living American.

So who is it? I thought really hard about it, and I could not come to a conclusion.

It’s hard to select a politician because there are too many sides to politics. President Barack Obama seems like a pretty nice guy, but Republicans would never select him as the greatest living American.

What about an actor or actress? Now that Charlie Sheen has been showing us how truly great a person an actor can be, we would all like to select someone like him as our representative, right? Probably not.

What about an athlete? Tiger Woods would be a great example of the greatest living American, if this were 2002.

But, sadly, here we are, and I have no one to select, or do I?

No one ever said that there could not be a tie. Maybe there are hundreds of people out there who are the greatest living Americans?

So, here are my winners for greatest living American.

Group one, the volunteers. Think about all of those people in this world who volunteer and sacrifice family time to do a job or help others.

I think from the people helping with the relief efforts in Japan all the way down to our local firefighters, volunteers are all great candidates for the greatest living Americans.

Group two, the givers. I think people who make donations to charities and help support their communities are great, even when no one knows who they are.

Group three, the family members. This is the mothers, fathers and grandparents who would do anything for their children and grandchildren. The ones who would do anything for their family.

I am sure that all of us have at least one person in mind who we could nominate as the greatest living American. I can name a couple dozen.